Separation

Suckit

This is a weird one, but i thought i would ask here as every other bit of advice seems to be daft or useless.
A friend of mine is married years (14 i think) and has a daughter 12yo.
10 years ago started a new job and used wifes bank account. All wages have been going there ever since.
Mortgage paid off in Feb. (She has not been working for years).

She took control of all of his wages and any bills etc.
Wages due in on the last Thursday in May, she bought a €15,000 car on the Wednesday and kicked him out on the Thursday. Got his last wage packet. Gave him €200 and told him to P*ss off.
He has since got a new B.A. and wages gone into it. She is demanding €700p.m. for the daughter and maintenance etc.
She has also changed bank account and wants the maintenance put into the new account.
He knows how stupid he has been, but she is still pulling his strings, and very much using his daughter against him. Blocked his phone from Daughters phone and turned it off (since been unblocked, but still gets turned off). Sending daughter over to UK without his knowledge and down the Country.
He got phone call off his daughter telling him that she was there.
She keep saying things like "i need money, do it for your daughter" and "Your daughter needs this, that, etc.".
He has done nothing wrong (no affair, no rows or abuse etc.) this came from out of the blue for him. She sees him in the local town ad gives a big wave to him (to look like everything is fine etc).

I am just wondering what is the best thing he should do. I did not want to go into too much more detail in case somebody sees this. Everybody seems to be giving him advice and a lot of it is crap coming from people who do not know any better (i have also been guilty of thinking i was helping ).
He does no have any money at the minute (he asked me for a "loan" of €5) :mad:.

She keeps ringing and i guess trying to find out what he is planning on doing, as i am sure she knows he is not going to/not able to continue in this way.

What are his best options for now?
Pay her, but pay her less?
Pay nothing and wait for court?
Meet her/do not meet her, do not even talk to her?

It is 100% finished, There is no way she wants him back, but she is continuing to try and take all of his money, and his daughter is being used against him He has already resigned losing the house, all of his money from the past and the car money etc. He just wants to start fresh.

Sorry if my wording is atrocious, i did not want to go into details.

A2LUE42

First thing he needs to do is get a decent Solicitor and some proper advice.

Suckit

A2LUE42 wrote: »

First thing he needs to do is get a decent Solicitor and some proper advice.

Yes, i agree. Another thing i forgot to add. He has a solicitor, and the solicitor has already told him that Judges tend to side with the woman/mother.
I thought it was a bit odd that the solicitor is already telling him not to expect anything other than to lose..

Peregrinus

If he doesn't have confidence in his solicitor, he can get a different one.

Suckit

Yep, thanks.
I guess what i was really asking was the bottom questions in the OP.

What are his best options for now?
Pay her, but pay her less?
Pay nothing and wait for court?
Meet her/do not meet her, do not even talk to her?

While he is between solicitors. It is not legal advice i am looking for, more along the lines of pointing in the right direction to help him. I was hoping that somebody here may have experienced or witnessed something similar and may point to the most painless route and one that he might be less likely to lose everything in the future (by taking that route).

bozd

Tell him to contact support group such as Amen - all in confidence
Thats abuse pure and simple.

C3PO

Why did he leave his home?

Suckit

bozd wrote: »

Tell him to contact support group such as Amen - all in confidence
Thats abuse pure and simple.

Thanks, will do that.

C3PO wrote: »

Why did he leave his home?

Truth is, he is a walkover. He does not seem to care about the home as he says he is content knowing that his daughter has a house, and he believes he can move on, even with zero cash.
But she is still hitting him up demanding more and more.

He is not the brightest.
I do not like to say that, but it is true.

Another day

Regardless of the circumstances of the marriage ending he does have a duty of care to his child. Depending on his income and outgoings a judge will award (guesstimate) between €50-€150 per week. He needs to list all his outgoings,rent, bills, car costs, food etc and make her an offer based on the remainder. His ex is living rent free and is probably claiming social welfare so she is actually probably better off than him! Any payment made to her should be via his bank account so that there is a record of payments.
I would suggest he ask her to go to mediation to sort things out. Much cheaper than using a solicitor and hopefully they can agree things in principle. She needs to get herself a job but let the judge tell her that....attitudes have changed in that respect.

Suckit

Another day wrote: »

Regardless of the circumstances of the marriage ending he does have a duty of care to his child. Depending on his income and outgoings a judge will award (guesstimate) between €50-€150 per week. He needs to list all his outgoings,rent, bills, car costs, food etc and make her an offer based on the remainder. His ex is living rent free and is probably claiming social welfare so she is actually probably better off than him! Any payment made to her should be via his bank account so that there is a record of payments.
I would suggest he ask her to go to mediation to sort things out. Much cheaper than using a solicitor and hopefully they can agree things in principle. She needs to get herself a job but let the judge tell her that....attitudes have changed in that respect.

She has got herself a job in the past few weeks. I only found that out today. Apparently she started working two weeks before kicking him out.
He will do everything and anything for his daughter, i think that maybe why she (his ex) is so confident in bringing her up every time she wants something. He is not on a great wage. An okay one, but nothing great. He has zero savings as all of his wages for the past 10 years have been going directly into her bank acc.
She has stepped up her game since Saturday and is bombarding him with texts and calls saying that they need to talk, he will have to sort things out for the good of their daughter.
A few of us have said that we do not think it is a good idea to meet her (one of our friends went a little further than that), and he agreed, until today (I was away at weekend). He told her that he did not think it was a good idea to meet, as he is afraid he will come out worse off. She worded things to say that it is all for the daughter and wants to meet him tomorrow after work.
I think that she has already ruled out any mediation straight away, although did mention she might use her friends sister in law if he would.
She is looking for a lot more than €150 per week.
I think she is working xx hours a week and still collecting partial social welfare if that is possible? That was said today when he was asked about electricity bills.
It is a bit confusing.

We have made a list today coincidentally, of outgoings - But he is currently living with a friend rent free (until he gets things sorted). The list was not that great.
His car is an old micra, so not a lot there and we never even thought of food itself, although we did estimate cost of living in general to be roughly €75 per week (after monthly shop) but it was a complete random figure.
He has currently no bills, but that is only because our friend is no charging him anything.

The funny thing is, if she was looking for a fair amount per week and left him alone, i think he would pay and be done with it (even though it may leave him financially unable to do almost anything except live), but it is because she keeps pressing for more even though she has everything. The only reason he started asking for help was because he felt as though he was pushed into a corner, and from what i have found out since, i do not blame him feeling like that at all.

bozd

I stood back and watched as my friends ex tore him apart - tough guy outside the home but inside a total pushover. The underlying fear really from him was that the wife would take it out on the kids I advised all sort of stuff but he said no he had some loyalty or honour to her as his childrens mother - big mistake as she didnt think so with him ha - land and big house to her - him a derelict house in the arseend of nowhere. He regrets it now not standing up for himself , financially I doubt he will ever recover - she claimed poverty to judge despite always being the breadwinner then once deal done in court she went and got a new kitchen, car and holidays while he was on the dole - total beeach. Same with my brother - didnt stand up to her - now she has everything and he is banking on getting by from a theoretical inheritance somewhere down the line. Your friends wife if she isnt given boundaries now she will spill over into his personal life and further control him - he needs counselling I would say to build up his selfbelief. Also saw it with my brother in law with his first wife - cleaned him out from day one and continued to do so til he got with my sister - then he realised his true worth. Amen

barman linen

He should look for a court date in the District Court as quickly as possible. If he has a solicitor I would expect him to have started this process.

The solicitor's comments about Judges siding with the mother are largely true in my opinion and I have seen some really crazy decisions in my own case.

He has an undoubted obligation to his daughter and that should be his first concern.

He needs to understand also that his ex wife has an EQUAL responsibility and obligation to provide for their child.

He should prepare his income and outgoings as mentioned above and be absolutely sure to include real costs for the expenses his friends are covering for now. If he puts zero the Judge will simply allocate more to the mother and he will be living on a couch forever.

The Judge will recognise that he no longer has a home and has to provide one - and will need one to spend time with his daughter so the quicker he resolves that the better. ( He should not have left the house if there was no abuse issues against him - and the house was in both names )

When he gets to Court he needs to make a reasonable offer for maintenance for his child taking into account his income and expenses. His wife will have to do the same. He should ensure that the expenses she presents are also real and reasonable. The District Court can award up to 150 euro per week per child. I am not sure what the household expenses are so he could be ordered to pay up to that amount.

He should resist any request for spousal maintenance - and ensure he pays child maintenance only. He should be prepared to indicate his wife is working ( though she may not be at the time of the case)

Best of luck. If his head is not in right place then he should work to get it there in time for the court.

Suckit

Thanks a million for that. I will give him all of that information right away.

Not that he is asking for this, i am just curious - should he consider all of his wages for the past 10 years gone?
Car bought the day before he was thrown out - gone too?

Again, he is not asking about that.
Thanks very much for the above.

Another day

Suckit wrote: »

Thanks a million for that. I will give him all of that information right away.

Not that he is asking for this, i am just curious - should he consider all of his wages for the past 10 years gone?
Car bought the day before he was thrown out - gone too?

Again, he is not asking about that.
Thanks very much for the above.

Yes it is all gone...all part of being a couple. Going forward he will know to have his own account and fund any future partnership equally.

barman linen

Another day wrote: »

Yes it is all gone...all part of being a couple. Going forward he will know to have his own account and fund any future partnership equally.

I agree that it is all gone....but he could refer to the account and if he feels there are significant funds in there then she could be asked to present statements as part of a vouching process. This may be futile as it may be already transferred to cash.

JimsAlterEgo

tell him to tell her to sell the new car and buy one a lot cheaper - a decent solicitor should be able to make the judge aware of what she was up to

tcif

Your friend needs to figure out what he needs to live on before he agrees maintenance - living on his friends couch with no bills is a temporary situation and an artificial one that may cloud his judgement on what's ahead of him. There are expenses templates online for affidavits of means for separations (e.g. http://www.croskerrys.com/statement%20of%20means.pdf but there may be better ones out there, I just did a quick google) that will help him figure out what costs he needs to be factoring in. Randomly deciding he can live on €75 a week won't help him and I'd suggest also he looks at Daft/Myhome for rental prices in his area in order to get some idea of what it's going to cost to put a roof over his head.

His desire to support his daughter is only right and commendable but he needs to live too. I'm sure he's hurting and reeling from what's happened and his wife bombarding him is keeping him off balance but he needs to make provision for himself now. He needs to make sure he doesn't end up with nowhere to go or unable to put food on the table or go to the doctor if he needs it, all the things he needs to put his life back together.

bozd

I agree with tcif; realisically he needs to have a place where his daughter can come and stay with him - not living in a bedsit or having just a room in a house share - if he wants to see her this will be brought into custody discussions as suitability for her to stay with him - my suggestion is do what the wife did - cash starve her and play the game because she sounds nasty. If she loves her daughter she wont make her suffer just to get even with your friend.

tcif

bozd wrote: »

he needs to have a place where his daughter can come and stay with him

+1 to this. Providing for his daughter doesn't just mean she has everything she needs at her mother's, it's also about making sure he can provide for her too. She needs time with her dad and he with her and getting custody requires suitable living arrangements for her to come and stay.

Suckit

Thanks for all the info.

I thought he had given her cash last night. It turns out i was wrong (thankfully).
He received a text today.
He is panicking now. I think everything became more of a reality even though it should have sooner.

tcif

I know it's easier said than done (believe me, I do - I've been there) but he needs to try not to panic now. If he hasn't already sought legal advice he needs to do so, and quickly. From all you've said, reasoning with his wife and amicably agreeing a way forward that's fair to all concerned isn't going to happen so he's going to have to go the legal route. Knowing where he stands legally will hopefully take some of the fear out of whatever his wife may be threatening him with or whatever he thinks is going to happen next, as will knowing what the next steps actually are and having someone who knows what they're doing fighting his corner for him. He may feel it's money he can scarcely afford right now but it would be money well spent because otherwise he may be left with nothing and no access to his daughter.

And get a solicitor who knows family law - not the local will/conveyancing person.

Suckit

barman linen wrote: »

He should..... (edited as it is a long quote)

Best of luck. If his head is not in right place then he should work to get it there in time for the court.

Just back to say thank you to everyone for replying, and especially big thanks to that post by barman linen.
I forwarded most of it, and it seems to have awoken him. I do not know if anything will happen in his favour, but just the wording and the advice seemed to have helped him move forward.
He has since gone out and sought more solicitors advice and there has been more 'events' since, but just came back to say thank you.

nuac

MOD
Suggest that the issues here should be left to the solicitors
Closed